“No, sir; he’s jist the same.”
“Mind your head,” said the laird, as he stooped to pass the low doorway, and led his friend into the hut.
The interior consisted of one extremely dirty room, in which the confined air was further vitiated by tobacco smoke and the fumes of whisky. One entire side of it was occupied by two box-beds, in one of which lay a brawny, broad-shouldered man, with fiery red hair and scarcely less fiery red eyes, which seemed to glare out of the dark den in which he lay.
“Well, Ivor, are ye not better to-day, man?”
There was a sternness in Mr Gordon’s query, which not only surprised but grieved his young companion; and the surprise was increased when the sick man replied in a surly tone—
“Na, laird, I’m not better; an’ what’s more, I’ll not be better till my heed’s under the sod.”
“I’m afraid you are right, Ivor,” returned the laird, in a somewhat softer tone; “for when a man won’t help himself, no one else can help him.”
“Help myself!” exclaimed the man, starting up on one elbow, and gazing fiercely from under his shaggy brows. “Help myself!” he repeated. And then, as if resolving suddenly to say no more, he sank down and laid his head on the pillow, with a short groan.
“Here, Ivor, is a bottle o’ physic that my wife sends to ye,” said Mr Gordon, pulling a pint bottle from his pocket, and handing it to the man, who clutched it eagerly, and was raising it to his mouth when his visitor arrested his hand.
“Hoot, man,” he said, with a short laugh, “it’s not whisky! She bid me say ye were to take only half a glass at a time, every two hours.”